1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a system employing technology products to provide customer relationship management and business process efficiency solutions, specifically in the area of customer queue management.
2. Background of the Invention
Waiting in line is a common experience, whether for a table at a popular restaurant or for the latest ride at a theme park. For most people the experience is not always pleasant. Additionally, businesses concerned about their customer relationships have had no practical way of communicating or interacting with their waiting customers. The ability to interact with waiting customers is highly desirable because it allows businesses the opportunity to optimize their existing services and offer new services to waiting customers. Traditionally, interacting with individuals waiting in a queue has been inefficient and expensive because employees must either talk with each waiting customer on an ongoing basis or the business must provide sophisticated devices that interact with each waiting customer.
Current systems available for businesses to manage waiting customers, queue them for service, and notify them when service is ready for them have no means of interacting with each waiting customer. These systems include:
Physical queues: customers gather in a small lobby or in an area roped off from other customers, which is awkward, unappealing, and uncomfortable for customers.
Intercom paging systems: customers' names are called out over a loud speaker to a crowd of waiting customers. This system can be cumbersome to manage because some guests may not hear the page the first time their names are called. This could also deteriorate the atmosphere for customers who are currently receiving service.
“Take a number” system: each customer is given a number and an elevated display shows the “Now Serving” number to a crowd of customers. This system has similar problems as the intercom system with regards to crowd management.
On-premises paging systems: products such as a non-interactive multi-modal paging system, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,542,751 to Blink et al. (2003), are expensive and require guests to remain in the local area so that the device can be activated to notify them that service is available. These systems provide no means to interact with guests or to verify that guests actually received any notification until they return with the pager.
Queue management systems for theme parks: current products relying on queue management systems, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,529,786 to Sim et al. (2003), are very complex, expensive, cumbersome to implement and manage, require individuals to carry an expensive electronic device, and have many of the same issues as on-premises paging systems.
So, businesses not only cannot interact with waiting individuals they also cannot verify that waiting individuals have received notification that service is available, provide alternative services, or allow individuals to control their place in the queue.
Some combination of the above systems are used to establish priority and class of service: many businesses, such as theme parks, have both physical lines and VIP levels of service for managing waiting individuals.
A restaurant is a typical business concerned with business process throughput and customer wait experiences. Today, many restaurants use on-premises pagers that include features such as flashing lights, attractive shapes, and vibration to notify their waiting customers that their tables are ready. Not only are these devices expensive (in excess of US$50 per pager) for restaurants to provide and awkward for customers to carry, they also provide no way of interactively communicating with waiting customers. Furthermore, restaurants are burdened with managing these paging devices to ensure they are properly charged, replacing them in a timely manner when they fail, and keeping a sufficient inventory of the devices on hand for their customers.
Another example of a business concerned about its business process throughput and customer wait experience is a theme park. Theme parks often have extremely long queues that contain hundreds of customers. Today, theme parks are concerned about their customers' wait experience because long lines are the primary customer complaint for a theme park. Lengthy queues represent lost revenue; if customers are waiting in line for an attraction, they can't be in a store shopping or buying food.
These and other problems exist. While the above mentioned patents and marketplace solutions are a good start, none of them address using devices owned by the customers, collecting information from the customers, providing marketing information to the customers, etc., while they are in wait status. Therefore the need exists for a more better way to manage customer waiting times that allows the establishment to have a more robust way to interact with each customer, while giving the customer a more satisfying waiting experience.
As more people use portable communication devices—e.g., mobile phones—as their primary means of communications, it becomes practical for businesses to use these devices to manage customers waiting in a queue. The mass adoption and availability of telephony, specifically mobile phones and wireless services, provides the foundation for interactive queuing systems.
The present invention allows businesses to communicate with their waiting customers, notify customers that service is available, collect information from customers, and allow customers the freedom to go wherever phone service is available while they wait.
The present invention also allows businesses to market or provide information to waiting customers in the form of text or multimedia messages. Businesses may also collect numbers to build a customer list for future marketing activities. Since businesses can access the system through the Internet, they can integrate interactive queuing into their Web sites and allow customers to view current wait lists and add themselves to the queue via a Web browser, kiosk, or other terminal.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can interact with, gain information from, and manage waiting individuals in any service queue.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can further improve their efficiency and quality of service to customers and allow them a better wait experience.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses do not have to provide any electronic devices to waiting customers; customers provide their own phones.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can provide options to customers while they wait, such as the opportunity to confirm cancel, delay, or select another service.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein customers do not have to remain on-premises or wait in crowded waiting areas.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can track customer responses to collect business operation metrics.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can easily set up and manage voice messages that customers hear and determine the options they are given.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can send text, SMS, or multimedia messages to customers to deliver promotional materials, provide wait-status updates, or other information.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can integrate this invention with other business processes so that other business systems can act on responses from the waiting customers automatically.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system wherein businesses can enable customers to add themselves to the wait list through a variety of interfaces such as kiosks, Web interfaces, or other terminals.
Further objects and advantages of the present invention allow businesses to creatively control their customer wait experience in ways not before possible or practical. Any business with a customer wait, either in the form of physical queues or “virtual” lines such as call centers that take calls in the order they are received, can use this invention to improve customers' wait experiences by offering customers more freedom and flexibility as they wait for service. Using this invention, businesses can also offer additional service, increase their current business process efficiency, and better manage the customer wait experience.